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<title> Mesh Viewer </title>
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<meta name="description" content="Mesh Viewer is an application to display triangular meshes">
<meta name="author" content="Helmut Cantzler, Toby Breckon">
<meta name="keywords" content="Triangular Mesh, 3D Mesh, OpenGL, VRML, X3D">
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<br>
<img width=291 height=56 alt="Mesh Viewer" src="pics/mesh_title.jpg">
<p>
[ <a href="#Description">Description</a> |
<a href="#3D formats">3D formats</a> |
<a href="#Requirements">Requirements</a> |
<a href="#Screenshots">Screenshots</a> |
<a href="#Examples">Example models</a> |
<a href="#Downloads">Downloads</a> |
<a href="#Contact">Contact</a> ]
</p>
<p>
The latest version is <a href="#Downloads">mview-0.3.3</a>
</p>
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<img width=169 height=144 src="pics/castle_small.jpg">
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<a name="Description">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Description
</div>
</a>
<p>
The Mesh Viewer is an easy to use lightweight application for displaying
three dimensional models (triangular meshes) from a variety of file
formats. It uses OpenGL to render the models.
</p>
<p>
The program was born under the need for quickly displaying reconstructed
triangulated meshes. The Mesh Viewer is based on an idea and an early
elementary implementation from Craig Robertson. The current version has been
developed by Helmut Cantzler and various contributors.
</p>
<p>
Triangular meshes can be displayed texture mapped (optional with bilinear
filtering), solid or as a wire frame (all lines or just the front lines). The
surface normals of the triangles can be displayed optionally. Loaded models
can be rotated, translated and scaled (all done with the mouse). The model is
lighted by multiple light sources. Viewpoints can be saved. Screenshots of
the model can be taken.
</p>
<a name="3D formats">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Supported 3D formats
</div>
</a>
<p>
Mesh Viewer supports the following 3D file formats:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
PMesh forma (used at the
<a href="http://www.ipab.informatics.ed.ac.uk/mvu/">Vision group</a>
of the University of Edinburgh)
</li>
<li>
GTS format (from the <a href="http://gts.sourceforge.net">
Gnu Triangulation Library</a>)
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.geomview.org/">
Geomview</a> format (only format "OFF" or "COFF")
</li>
<li>
PLY format (only ASCII format)
</li>
<li>
VRML 1.0 format
</li>
<li>
VRML 2.0 format (VRML97)
</li>
<li>
Shallo format
</li>
<li>
Visualisation Toolkit <a href="http://www.vtk.org">VTK</a>
format (ASCII POLYDATA only)
</li>
<li>
Alias Wavefront / Java 3D
<a href="http://www.eg-models.de/formats/Format_Obj.html">OBJ</a>
format (ASCII polygon data only).
</li>
</ul>
<p>
A short description of the features and capabilities of some of the supported
3D formats can be found <a href="formats.html">here</a>.
</p>
<a name="Requirements">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Requirements
</div>
</a>
<p>
Mesh Viewer should compile and run under all Unix derivatives and Microsoft
Windows. It was tested under Linux, Windows XP and Solaris.
</p>
<p>
Mesh Viewer requires a 3-button mouse (or emulation) in order to rotate (left
button), translate (middle button) and zoom (right button) the model.
It is recommended to use a 3D acceleration graphics card for displaying
models. This is specially important for displaying models with texture. Linux
on i386 with nVidia 3D acceleration cards (nVidia driver needed) is supposed
to work fine.
</p>
<p>
Mesh Viewer requires an OpenGL library and a GUI library for displaying and
interacting with the OpenGL module. Mesh Viewer can be built with the
following three GUI libraries:
</p>
<table cellpadding=5>
<tr>
<td>
<h4>Qt 3</h4>
</td>
<td>
Qt 3 is an open-source cross-platform application development
library. It is one of the cornerstones of the popular KDE 3
desktop environment. Qt 3 should be part of most recent Linux
distributions. An unofficial GPL port of Qt 3 for MS Windows with
the name Q../Free can be
found <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtwin">here</a>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h4>Qt 4</h4>
</td>
<td>
<a href="http://qt.nokia.com/products">Qt 4</a> is the next major
release of the application development library. It will become the
base library of the newly developed KDE 4. Mesh Viewer requires Qt
4.1 or higher. Qt 4 is available from
the <a href="http://qt.nokia.com/downloads">download section</a>
of the Trolltech web site for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h4>GLUT</h4>
</td>
<td>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL_Utility_Toolkit">GLUT</a>
provides a simple graphical user interface for OpenGL programs. Most users
should use the Qt 3/Qt 4 libraries, since they provide a much more feature
rich user interface. It is recommended to not use the original GLUT
package, but the more up-to-date <a
href="http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/">freeglut</a> package. The GLUT
frontend requires LibJpeg 6 for texture image loading.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
Building instructions for Linux and MS Windows can be found <a
href="build.html">here</a>.
</p>
<a name="Screenshots">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Screenshots
</div>
</a>
<table cellpadding=15>
<tr>
<td align=center>
<a href="castle.html">Arenberg castle<br>
<img width=242 height=218 src="pics/castle.jpg"> </a>
</td>
<td align=center>
<a href="mummy.html">Mummy<br>
<img width=244 height=222 src="pics/mummy.jpg"> </a>
</td>
<td align=center>
<a href="bunny.html">Stanford bunny<br>
<img width=246 height=227 src="pics/bunny.jpg"> </a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<a name="Examples">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Example 3D models
</div>
</a>
<p>
<table cellpadding=5>
<tr>
<td align=center>
<img width=120 height=118 src="pics/totem_small.jpg"> </a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="http://mview.sourceforge.net/totem.zip">totem.zip</a> (574KB)
<p>
This is a textured 3D model of an Indian totem. The model was
reconstructed by NRC Institute for Information Technology in Canada.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=center>
<img width=120 height=118 src="pics/bigben_small.jpg"> </a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="http://mview.sourceforge.net/bigben.zip">bigben.zip</a> (616KB)
<p>
This is a textured 3D model of an miniature model of Big Ben (bell of the
Palace of Westminster in London). The model was reconstructed by <a
href="http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/~toby.breckon">Toby Breckon</a>.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=center>
<img width=120 height=111 src="pics/bunny_small.jpg"> </a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="http://mview.sourceforge.net/bunny.zip">bunny.zip</a> (600KB)
<p>
This a destimated version of the Stanford bunny. The model was
reconstructed by the <a href="http://www-graphics.stanford.edu/">Stanford
Computer Graphics Laboratory</a>.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</p>
Additional example models can be found here:
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://gts.sourceforge.net/samples.html">Gnu Triangulation
Library</a> (GTS models)
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/large_models">Large Geometric
Models Archive</a> at Georgia Institute of Technology (VRML2 models)
</li>
</ul>
<a name="Downloads">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Downloads
</div>
</a>
<p>
Mesh Viewer is distributed under the terms of the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html">LGPL</a>.
The changelog can be found <a href="changelog.html">here</a>.
</p>
<h4>Source code</h4>
<a href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mview/mview-src-0.3.3.tar.gz">mview-src-0.3.3.tar.gz</a> (360KB)
<h4>MS Windows executables</h4>
<p>
QT 3 Version: <a href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mview/mview-win-qt3-0.3.3.zip">mview-win-qt3-0.3.3.zip</a> (2.6MB)
</p>
<p>
QT 4 Version: <a href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mview/mview-win-qt4-0.3.3.zip">mview-win-qt4-0.3.3.zip</a> (4.0MB)
</p>
<p>
(the Qt libraries are included in the respective packages)
</p>
<p>
The project has a CVS repository, which can be examined via a <a
href="http://mview.cvs.sourceforge.net/mview">web-based CVS repository
viewer</a> or checked out through anonymous (pserver) CVS with the following
instruction set. When prompted for a password for <i>anonymous</i>, simply
press the Enter key.
</p>
<p>
<tt>
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@mview.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/mview login
<br/>
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@mview.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/mview co -P mview
</tt>
</p>
<a name="Contact">
<div class=h2 WIDTH=100%>
Contact
</div>
</a>
<p>
Comments, suggestions or bugs can be sent to Helmut Cantzler
<span class=email> < cantzler at gmx dot net > </span>
or Toby Breckon
<span class=email> < toby dot breckon at cranfield dot ac dot uk > </span>
</p>
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